Bangladeshi nationals held in Agartala

Agartala, March 17 (IANS) Four Bangladeshi nationals coming from Mumbai via Kolkata were arrested at the Agartala airport for “their mysterious role in India”, police said here Thursday.

“Acting on a tip-off, intelligence bureau officials nabbed the middle-aged Bangladeshi nationals late Wednesday for illegally entering into India and later handed them over to the Tripura police,” Tripura police spokesman Nepal Das told IANS.

The foreign citizens were arrested under the Indian Passport Act. A local court sent them to 14 days’ custody.

“The Bangladeshi nationals had illegally entered into India last year through Benapole-Petrapole border in West Bengal,” a police official told reporters after preliminary investigations.

“After staying in West Bengal for a few months, they went to Mumbai, from where they came to Agartala by a private airline enroute to Dhaka,” he added.

“The central and state intelligence officials are questioning the detainees. Some suspicious information and telephone numbers of Pakistani citizens along with their mobile sets have been recovered from them,” the official said.

According to the interrogators, the foreign nationals were giving different statements to the police. “We are trying to unearth the truth from them,” the official said.

Border Security Force (BSF) troopers and Tripura police last year detained three top agents of Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in different parts of the northeastern state, which shares an 856-km border with Bangladesh.

According to police, the ISI agents had entered India from Bangladesh and visited other northeastern states as well. The Pakistani spies are now in Tripura jails.